Afghanistan was once a country that banned music; when the Taliban was in power, musicians were beaten and their instruments were destroyed. But today, music resounds in the country again, with the voices of children who attend the Afghan National Institute of Music, AFP reported.
The students, according to The New York Times, will come to the U.S. to perform at two concerts, one at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Feb. 7, and another at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 12.
Ahmad Sarmast, an Afghan native who studied his country's music and received training in Russia and Australia, opened the institute in 2010. The school, which offers free tuition, teaches about 150 youth, the Times added, about half of whom are orphans and street hawkers. Most strikingly, about 35 percent of the students are women - despite the struggles that Afghani women face in acquiring an education. Students study both Western and Afghani instruments and music theory, the Times reported. All of the students are between 10 and 20 years old, according to Ahram Online.
Sarmast said that holding a concert in the U.S. would send an important message to the western world about Afghanistan. "It will be showing to the international community about the love of the Afghan people for music and the positive changes for kids and for girls," he told the Times.
The tour is expected to cost $500,000 -- $50,000 of which the Carnegie Foundation promised, and the institute submitted a grant request for $350,000 to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which William Harvey, who teaches violin at the school and directs the orchestra, said is likely to come through.
Fikra Azizi is a student at the institute who told Al-Jazeera that the school saved her from a life on the streets. At only 12 years old, she sold plastic bags on Kabul's roadsides. When institute recruiters arrived at her school for working children, she quickly grew interested in music and began playing Afghanistan's national instrument, the traditional rubab, she told Al-Jazeera. And now, with almost three years at the school, she has a message to share with the U.S. audiences she performs for.
"We have women's rights; here we have children's rights," she told Al-Jazeera."We want to show them in the USA that Afghanistan has achieved something. They think that the women are under the burqa and can't do anything. We want to tell them that we can do something. In reality, Afghanistan is being rebuilt."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
